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Now family claims rape { November 7 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8953-2003Nov6.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8953-2003Nov6.html
New Biography Indicates Lynch Was Raped by Captors
By William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 7, 2003; Page A24
Jessica Lynch, the Army private whose capture and rescue made her the most famous soldier of the war in Iraq, was raped by her Iraqi captors, according to a family spokesman.
A new authorized biography of the soldier accurately cites medical records indicating Lynch was sexually assaulted, Stephen Goodwin said. He said the 20-year-old former private has no recollection of the attack. The New York Daily News obtained a copy of the book, written by Rick Bragg and titled "I Am a Soldier, Too: The Jessica Lynch Story," and published excerpts yesterday ahead of the scheduled Tuesday release.
Goodwin said Lynch, who recently left the Army, apparently was assaulted sometime before she was taken to an Iraqi hospital after a March 23 attack on her convoy that left her badly injured.
"Jessi indicated she received reasonable medical care while she was there and has not made any other complaints of mistreatment at the hospital," Goodwin said. In an interview to be broadcast Tuesday on the ABC News program "Primetime," Lynch told Diane Sawyer that she does not remember such an assault, saying "Even just the thinking about that, that's too painful," according to a network news release.
Shortly after Lynch was rescued, the Army Criminal Investigation Command opened a war crimes investigation into the indications that she was abused, Pentagon officials said. The command sent agents to Iraq to interview individuals and bring back forensic evidence. Officials said the investigation continues.
Beverly Chidel, spokeswoman at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, said, "We gave the medical records to Lynch and her family at their request when they left Walter Reed."
In the book, Bragg writes: "The records do not tell whether her captors assaulted her almost lifeless, broken body after she was lifted from the wreckage, or if they assaulted her and then broke her bones into splinters until she was almost dead." Bragg declined to comment yesterday.
Lynch, a member of the 507th Maintenance Company, was rescued from the hospital in Nasiriyah by U.S. forces on April 1. The rescue buoyed American troops in Iraq who were then stalled south of Baghdad and lifted the spirits of the U.S. public. The publicity turned the aspiring teacher from Palestine, W.Va., into something of a hero, which she told Sawyer was embarrassing. "I don't look at myself as a hero," she said, according to ABC. "I'm just a survivor."
Lynch also told Sawyer that during the ambush her weapon jammed and she never fired a shot, contrary to initial reports published in The Washington Post and elsewhere. Sawyer asked, "Did you go down like, somebody said, Rambo?" Lynch replied: "No. No. I went down praying to my knees. And that's the last I remember."
Staff writers Anne Hull and Dana Priest contributed to this report.
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
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